Say you bring in a sealed box full of ice into a warm room. Knowing, thermodynamically, that higher temperature means higher energy of air particles that transfer heat by bumping into one another (don’t kill me for this oversimplification!), how does heat transfer across the hard box sides into the inner space and melt the ice?
In: 0
Heat transfers through the following methods:
1. Conduction — hot atoms vibrate more, bumping those next to them giving them a bit of energy and on down the line.
2. Convection — hot particles (fast moving ones) physically move from a hot area to a cooler area and transfer their energy.
3. Radiation — thermal body gives off electromagnetic energy (black body radiation) that is absorbed somewhere else.
Conduction is the primary heat transfer mechanism through hard (solid) surfaces.
Convection is common in both liquids and and gasses. Not so much in solids since the atoms are by definition not free to move around.
Radiation is the only means of heat transfer through a vacuum. Most of the Sun’s heat transfer reaches us through radiation (although there is a bit of convection via the solar wind).
Latest Answers